Wells Pump $100K Daily
Gulfport Operations Lucrative
Wheeling Intelligencer
27 January 2013
By Casey Junkins, Staff Writer
BARNESVILLE - The positives keep coming for Gulfport Energy's
Utica Shale operations, as the Stutzman well in southwestern
Belmont County could be producing about $100,000 worth of revenue
per day.
"Add in the 945 barrels of natural gas liquids at $50 per barrel,
and you are talking about something well above $100,000 per day in
revenue," said Tim Carr, the Marshall Miller Professor of Energy
at West Virginia University.
The Stutzman well tested at a rate of 21 million cubic feet per
day of natural gas, in addition to the 945 barrels per day of
ethane, propane, butane and other liquids.
Photo by Casey Junkins
Gulfport Energy continues producing large volumes of natural gas
and oil from Ohio’s Utica Shale. A new well near Barnesville is
producing about $63,000 in gas each day, according to a West
Virginia University professor.
"Twenty-one million cubic feet per day is very impressive. That is
$63,000 per day at $3 per Mcf," Carr said of the natural gas
production per 1,000 cubic-foot unit. "If those numbers hold up
for a few months, the well will certainly be profitable."
Also, Gulfport's Clay well - located in the area of U.S. 22 and
Ohio 800, near the northern portion of Piedmont Lake in Harrison
County - is producing daily averages of 747 barrels of condensate,
761 barrels of natural gas liquids and 5.9 million cubic feet of
natural gas. These wells are in addition to the company's Shugert
well that has been producing about 28.5 million cubic feet of gas
per day deep within the Egypt Valley area near Morristown.
Carr, with many years of experience in the natural gas industry,
finds Gulfport's different categorization for condensate and NGL
somewhat unique.
"That is the hydrocarbon liquids in a very saturated natural gas
that come out of solution when the pressure drops," he said of the
condensate. "I think when they are distinguishing condensate from
NGLs, they are referring to pentane or what is referred to as
natural gasoline."
Gulfport notes the company drilled the Stutzman 9,020 feet
vertically before turning the well horizontally for an 8,634
lateral leg.
The company hopes to have the gas flowing into a sales pipeline by
June.
Many Eastern Ohio residents who originally signed leases with
Wishgard LLC or Tri-Star Energy have seen those contracts turned
over to Gulfport, while Gulfport has also signed many county
landowners to their own leases. Terms of the leases can range
widely depending upon when they were signed and a multitude of
other factors. However, some property owners have received at
least as much as $5,900 per acre, with as much as 20 percent of
the production royalties.
Gulfport is also supplying gas from Belmont and Harrison County
wells to the Cadiz MarkWest complex that is now up and running.
The interim refrigeration plant is the first phase of the new
plant to open, with many more operations still to begin at the
large facility, just off Ohio 9 south of Cadiz.
Hundreds of construction workers and pipeliners are now working at
the plant, while they should continue doing so until 2014.